Spin-off know-how helps fuel economy

by Stephen Forgacs

Staff writer

When Westport Innovations Inc., a UBC spin-off company, unveiled its first
modified transit coach it marked another branch in the tree of success that
is UBC's University-Industry Liaison Office (UILO).

The bus, powered by a diesel engine converted to operate using a unique natural
gas injection system, emits half the pollutants and costs close to half as much
as its gas-guzzling counterparts. Over the next decade, the company hopes to
transform the diesel industry worldwide from diesel fuel to low-emission natural
gas.

The Westport story, and those of many other UBC spin-offs, has helped place
UBC third in North America in the creation of new companies, behind only Stanford
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to survey results published
in the Report on the UBC Spin-off Company Formation and Growth, released
today by the UILO. The Westport example is just one of a growing list of UBC
spin-off companies and UBC-licensed technologies.

"UBC has been very successful in supporting the creation and development of
spin-off companies, and the licensing of UBC-developed technologies," says the
report's author and UILO Associate Director Angus Livingstone. "The challenge
now is not only to continue to link UBC technologies with industry partners
for further development, but also to promote and accelerate the growth of the
existing companies."

Included in the report are the results of surveys conducted in 1994 and 1997
of UBC's spin-off companies, which paint a vivid picture of the rapid growth
in the number of spin-off companies, now at 71, and the growth experienced by
the companies themselves.

More than 1,500 jobs created by UBC spin-off companies boost both the provincial
and national economies -- 96 per cent of these jobs are in B.C.

The companies are also generating returns for the university including $17.5
million in cumulative research funding to UBC, $3.4 million in royalties, and,
on paper, $5.6 million in equity shares held by UBC in 1997.

Growth in returns to UBC is most remarkable in cumulative research funding,
which has more than doubled from $8.2 million in just three years, and in the
paper value of UBC's equity shares, from $1.6 million in 1994.

In the last year alone, UBC received $3.5 million in industry-sponsored research
funds from UBC spin-offs.

"We are seeing rapid growth in a number of the spin-off companies that have
matured in the past few years," says Livingstone. "This is due, in part, to
the fact that increasingly sophisticated private investors are recognizing the
opportunities these companies offer, the value of the technologies they are
developing, and the services they provide.

"While government support of our spin-offs has grown by about $6 million since
1994, private investment has climbed dramatically from $249 million to $634
million."

As investor support has grown, so have the companies' revenues. In 1994, UBC's
spin-off companies reported combined annual revenues of $20.9 million. By 1997,
annual revenues had jumped to $42.4 million.

The range of technologies and services offered by UBC's spin-offs is vast.
The majority of companies (45 per cent) operate in the life sciences sector,
with 39 per cent based in the physical sciences, and 15 per cent in information
technology.

The number of UBC spin-off companies is growing at a rate of five to seven
companies per year and, according to a 1997 National Research Council review,
UBC alone accounted for more than 20 per cent of university-based spin-offs
created in Canada.